You Don't Say

John McIntyre, whom James Wolcott called "the Dave Brubeck of the art and craft of copy editing," writes on language, editing, journalism, and random topics. Identifying his errors relieves him of the burden of omniscience. Write to jemcintyre@gmail.com, befriend at Facebook, or follow at Twitter: @johnemcintyre. His original "You Don't Say" blog at The Baltimore Sun ran from 2005 to 2021, and posts on it can sometimes be found at baltimoresun.com through Google searches.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Real or Onion?

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It is not an easy matter to determine the point at which the United States of America transcended satire, but it is a simple matter to ident...
9 comments:
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Devoted to grammar

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Let’s suppose you are an aspirant to the Priesthood of All Grammarians. You will, of course, have the sacred texts, MWDEU , Garner on Usage,...
8 comments:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Mock the AP Stylebook

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This is fishing with dynamite. On Twitter, @APStylebook, which previously solicited adoration for its latest edition, rather as if buying ...
10 comments:
Monday, November 16, 2009

Christmas is coming. Save yourselves

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Another holiday season looms menacingly over us, and some merchants, desperate to flog their inventory, have even resorted to taking out adv...
25 comments:
Sunday, November 15, 2009

The hermeneutic comma

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The Rev. Avery Dulles, a Jesuit priest and son of the arch-Presbyterian John Foster Dulles, once spoke at a church that had one of those tre...
8 comments:
Thursday, November 12, 2009

Michigan State, how could you even think of it?

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An urgent e-mail from my daughter says that the provost at Michigan State University, my alma mater, has proposed eliminating the major in c...
12 comments:
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Mr. Hawthorne's caution

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I wonder whether some of us in the paragraph game, finding ourselves abruptly deposited on the street after long tenure with a publication, ...
9 comments:

The Founders' dilemmas

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Name a text — other than the Bible — that is more revered and less understood than the Constitution of the United States. Can’t? I’m not s...
6 comments:
Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Note to copy editors everywhere

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Anal-retentive takes a hyphen.
6 comments:

Words to watch out for: Accused

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This headline appears at Baltimoresun.com this morning: Charges dropped against / accused city brothel operator The intention is to iden...
8 comments:
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